


The Day the Pretense Lapsed

by BC_Brynn



Category: NCIS
Genre: BAMF Ducky, Cliche, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Deliberate Badfic, Emo!Gibbs, M/M, Tony Gets a Dicking Instead, Tony Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-26 07:17:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12552088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BC_Brynn/pseuds/BC_Brynn
Summary: The only way they can express their feelings is through emotional extortion – whether those are feelings of anger, depression or love. It’s the Gibbs School of Showing You Care.





	The Day the Pretense Lapsed

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I know this fanfic is terrible. That’s the point. I’ve been reading NCIS fanfiction for years, even before the show itself went bleh, (and shipping Gibbs/Tony, because I am trash and they started out absolutely ship-worthy), and there are a lot of oft-repeated clichés. Some of them initially seem funny but turn annoying after the fifth repetition, and hateful after the tenth one.
> 
> I basically took the collected hatred of NCIS clichés from my brain and spewed it all over a text editor. You have been warned. At least there’s not an immortal superhero mega genius hacker Tony, because even my hatred has limits.
> 
> (detailed warnings are in the end note, as per usual)

Tony’s had a good day professionally (solved the case for the team practically single-handed), but shitty day personally. Ziva and McGee pissed him off, which, contrary to popular opinion, wasn’t easy to do without unrepentantly causing harm to another human being.

Gibbs hasn’t made an appearance after he’d skipped out for his noon-ish round of coffee.

And Walker confessed everything, but turned out to be basically a weapon in the hands of some other asshole, who has kept the guy so twisted around he couldn’t tell you his own favorite pizza topping.

Basically, the whole day is the typical MCRT shit-show, and for once Tony doesn’t take his happy pills and pretend that everything is hunky dory.

x

“All wrapped up?” Gibbs asks, smooth as you please, in the wake of an arrest-and-interrogation Tony’s somehow plowed through despite the borderline insubordination of the team and the absence of their _Supervisory_ Special Agent.

Tony’s _so_ tempted to ask what kept Gibbs. If it was some political thing, sucking up to a guy who knew a guy, or at least who had so much money in his off-shore bank account that it chafed… or if it was personal. Whether Gibbs left them hanging because he had something more important to do or because he plain didn’t give a fuck.

“Check your e-mail, Boss,” Tony says, and he almost believes his own amused tone as he speaks. Where does that note of merriment come from, he wonders. Which movie has he copied it from? Which actor? Which character?

He has no idea.

Off-handedly, Tony realizes that once upon a time it wouldn’t have occurred to him to ask those kinds of questions. He would have just assumed that Gibbs had had to attend to some life-or-death stuff and felt blessed for being sheltered by the man’s reputation. Nowadays Tony’s not half as naïve, not half as trusting, and Gibbs has proven exactly how much he can be relied upon. Which is to say, not a whole lot, unless he expressly states so.

Tony tries to recall all Gibbs’ definitive statements. He comes up with a whole lot of very general and very specific rules. He doesn’t recall anything at all in the ‘don’t leave your friends hanging’ or the ‘people around me matter to me’ direction. There’s Rule One, but Gibbs doesn’t actually live by the Rules.

That’s the big secret. Tony’s seen behind the curtain now, and he knows how the magic trick works. The magic is lost.

Tony’s good at cutting his losses.

He’s good at accepting that people don’t give a fuck about him – even people who would, by all conventions, be expected to give a crap.

He’s good at lying to himself, at cheating himself, convincing himself that it doesn’t matter, that he’s still a whole person in the morning after. That there’s a point to crawling out of bed and facing a new day.

It’s been a while since he’s gone to the trouble of convincing himself that someone might one day turn around and find that they loved him. It’s always been a ridiculous notion, anyway. It’s propaganda, forced down the throats of the hungry nation willing to pay for tickets to the movies. It’s not real. It’s never been real. And even if it could be, it would never have anything to do with him, either way.

“You ever feel like I use you?” Gibbs asks, pretty much out of blue. Only not, because he’s always been a little too good and a little too horribly bad at reading Tony.

Tony doesn’t need to think about _that_. “Yes.”

“Abuse you?” Gibbs inquires, intrigued.

That’s a tougher one. Tony’s not sure. In the end, in the name of honesty, he admits: “Yes, Boss.”

“You hate me for it?” Gibbs asks, for all intents and purposes genuinely curious.

How the fuck is this a conversation for the bullpen? It would maybe make sense in Gibbs’ basement, with the boat and the bourbon, as a ploy to string Tony along for another month, for another slew of hellish cases, keep him hoping – keep him _there_.

In the bullpen it’s just a different form of abuse.

There are other agents, non-MCRT agents (non- _entities_ , as far as Gibbs is concerned – see Chris Pacci’s bloody death for reference) listening in on this farce.

Tony has to think about the answer. It’s not half as tough as a shitload of other questions Gibbs could be asking him, but it’s not all that straightforward, either. In the end, he’s got to admit, no matter how pathetic, that the answer is: “No.”

“No?” Gibbs inquires.

In that moment, Tony could have cheerfully strangled him (which might be the reason why Gibbs asked in public – he really is frighteningly good at blindsiding Tony). Instead, he turns to the screen of his computer and starts pecking at the keyboard, vaguely in the aim of completing his report. It wouldn’t hurt Gibbs to be ignored a bit. He’d bet Gibbs didn’t know how that felt. Might do him good.

“I asked you a question, DiNozzo,” Gibbs prompts.

Tony’s sorely tempted to show him the finger. He refrains. No matter what people think of him, he’s got better self-control than that.

Instead, he writes another couple of lines of his report, before his well of inspiration dries out and he gets stuck staring at the blinking cursor, trying to remember what came next. He doesn’t even have the excuse of a concussion this time. More’s the pity.

“DiNozzo!” Gibbs growls.

“Yes, Boss!” Tony hastily replies, getting into his manic groove. “Sorry, Boss! I know you asked me – I just got to thinking. And I think you’d be better off asking Abby or McGee – I mean, I’m just the hired muscle, aren’t I? I’m here to chase down the suspect and cuff them in case your knee’s acting up, which is, of course, not ever, Boss, because I wouldn’t dare impugn your general capability at anything, Boss.” At this point Tony knows he’s gotten carried away, but he also becomes aware that he can’t control the avalanche once it’s been set in motion. “And, yes, contrary to all expectations, I do know what ‘impugn’ means and how to use it in a sentence. I realise that might come as a bit of a shock, Boss… Either way, I’m pretty sure that you could order me to drop trou and bend over and I’d be all ‘Yes, sir’, ‘No, sir’, and ‘As you wish, sir!’ for you. So, why not take advantage? I mean, there can’t be many more ways you could literally fuck me over, are there?”

He finally manages to bite his tongue, but it’s too late. There’s this horrible silence, and Tony thinks that it sounds a little like a pink slip and a lot like freedom. There’s headslaps in there, but then again not, because even headslaps have to be deserved with Gibbs. If he wants to be rid of you, he leaves you with nothing.

With complete and utter silence.

Tony’s fingers slowly, assuredly travel over the keyboard and open another document, one which he has created on his second day on the job, and which he has deleted too many times to count. And which he has renewed from the Bin just as many times. It’s sort of like all those years he’s worked his ass off for Gibbs have been leading to this moment, and he’s always known it. In the end, it comes down to Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Anthony DiNozzo, and it ends the only way it conceivably could.

He presses print.

The printer spits out the papers, and Tony steps from behind his desk, sneaking past Gibbs yet careful not to touch him, to pick them up. He carries them back to McGee’s desk, borrows one of McGee’s pens and signs both copies. Then he offers them to Gibbs, still doing his damnedest not to meet that piercing blue gaze.

“You overestimated me, Boss,” he admits. “I’m too weak. Not smart enough, not strong enough, not stubborn enough. An all-around disappointment. But I get to disappoint you one last time, I suppose, right? By resigning before you can kick me off the team. Must sting. I’d say sorry, but I’m really fucking not. What I really want to say, from the bottom of my heart, with all the sincerity I’m possibly capable of is…”

He hesitates. Then he meets Gibbs’ eyes, blue, strikingly _indifferent_ and thinks – this is his only chance. So he says it.

“ _Fuck you_.”

He spins on his heel and walks toward the lift. So what if he’s spent years more than he had ever intended to at the Yard? He’ll just move again. He’s done it before. He’ll forget. He’ll find a new Boss who would condescend to him and new colleagues who would despise him and new ways to get himself hurt in some other, briefly attractive place. It’s always the same.

When you have no one and nothing to anchor you, it’s _always_ the same.

x

Gibbs has seen this coming. Of course he has seen it. And if it were any other member of his team, he would have prevented it, one way or another. People are generally not that hard to see through and manipulate. He could do it to Kate (more easily than he’d been comfortable with), he can do it to Ziva and McGee. He can do it to Ducky, too, if he puts his mind to it, and with some additional effort, Abby’s also easy to handle.

Not DiNozzo.

That’s what made him hire the man in the first place, what made him keep him on, what made him remain on the edge of his seat all those years, waiting for the moment when he would be shown up. When DiNozzo did something unexpected, came out of the left field, followed a ridiculous hunch to the correct conclusion… when he just plain outshone Gibbs on every level.

It wasn’t even that rare. In fact, if he is honest with himself, it happened pretty damn regularly.

That’s why, without consciously allowing himself to, he began to rely on DiNozzo.

That’s why it… hurt.

It is one of those things you can’t control. Like sickness. Like pain. Gibbs knows it intimately, and he simply swallows when Tony prints off his resignation and shoves it at him. He tries to convince himself that it was inevitable, but he’s never been good at deliberately fooling himself.

“So that’s it?” he asks, looking at DiNozzo’s back, feeling like the most pitiful coward in the Corps.

He knows the look in Tony’s eyes. Has seen it in the mirror too damn many times to count.

“Contrary to expectations,” Tony says softly, half-way to the elevator, “I’m subject to human limits, too.”

Gibbs doesn’t believe him. He never did. He’s seen Tony pull through shit other people wouldn’t survive, stand by him when anyone ‘normal’ would have long since tucked tail and run, symphatize where only contempt could be expected.

He remembers suddenly, starkly, what his life had been like without Tony in it. Maybe a heart-attack would feel similar. He doesn’t know. He’s never had a heart attack. He’s died before – not permanently, thanks to _Tony_ – but he wasn’t entirely conscious for that. Is he dying again?

That’s… almost funny.

Tony steps into the elevator and turns, looking back for one last moment before the door slides closed behind him.

This moment holds utter clarity for Gibbs. He’s never experienced anything similar. He’s been drunk, high on meds and hungover, he’s been awake continuously for eighty-plus hours, he’s been in love and tripping on adrenaline, counter-sniping hopped up on amphetamines, but he’s never had such an out-of-body experience, seeing himself, his whole being, in context. He’s never suspected it was possible. It transcends knowledge, emotion and intuition – Hell, it even transcends faith.

It is just fact, immediately available to all his senses, and he _sprints_ down the stairs to catch DiNozzo in the garage, bitterly aware that the man won’t believe him, but hopelessly, desperately trying one last last-ditch effort.

Possibly slightly crazed, he runs out of the stairwell and into DiNozzo, propelling them both into the nearest car, setting off a howling alarm. The man protests, tries to defend himself, but between the two of them Gibbs has always been the superior fighter.

Gibbs grabs him. Holds him clutched to his body, like he’s losing him forever – which he is.

And then, as if on some sort of schedule, finally allowing himself, only really not because it’s happening without any conscious consent from himself – he breaks.

He wants _DiNozzo_ to hold onto _him_.

“Get _off_ me!” the man hisses, and Gibbs supposes he wouldn’t even if he could. If his arms weren’t locked, if he weren’t hysterical like a fucking teenage girl.

It feels like those delirious nightmares after Kuwait, before he internalized that Shannon and Kelly were gone. When he dreamed of them dying and woke up grasping at thin air and feeling like they had only just slipped through his fingers.

DiNozzo shakes him off, punches his solar plexus and leaves him breathless on the concrete. He climbs to his feet. He’s about to go – to leave – when he realizes that it isn’t a game and Gibbs isn’t getting up because he might not ever get up again.

Gibbs is sure he could get up, physically, that is, if he could convince himself to. And he knows he would get up before anyone would find him there, certainly for long enough to go back to his house, maybe even long enough to bother to stage it like an accident, but then again – he’s not sure if it would be worth the effort.

One more ex-Marine suicide means exactly nothing in the bigger scheme.

It’s ironic. It’s been how many years since he’s last considered suicide as a viable option?

Before DiNozzo.

That’s how his life’s gone. Before Shannon. After Shannon and Kelly. Before DiNozzo. After-

No, he’s fairly sure there would be no ‘after DiNozzo’ for him. Gibbs decides that the person he was with Shannon, and the one he’s unknowingly been with DiNozzo is someone else, someone strange, _alien_ , hijacking his body. Someone capable of _things_.

Things like a sense of purpose. Like charisma and empathy. Like…

“I know,” he wheezes. “Go, Tony. _Go_.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” DiNozzo snarls, madder than Gibbs’ has ever seen him.

There’s no persona, no mask left. He’s lying on the garage floor, faced with the real DiNozzo he’s always _fathomed_ but never had the chance to see in all his hideousness and splendor.

“You’d so like me to make you into a martyr for _justice_. I’ve already disappointed you, after all. Why not take it to the extreme? Why not make myself a criminal over you?” DiNozzo shakes his head. “You want to have me up on charges of assaulting a Federal Agent, you’ve got to admit you assaulted first, without due cause.”

Gibbs shakes his head. He’d never do that. _Never_. He-

“I’m not accepting it,” Gibbs says. He’s still feeling like he can’t breathe, but apparently he can. Must be some sort of cognitive dissonance.

Tony scoffs. “If you won’t, Vance will.”

It’s probably true. Leon has been gradually (far too late) waking up to the reality of Tony being one of the best damn agents NCIS has ever employed, but he would wash his hands of him without blinking an eye.

_Stupid_. _Wasting good._

Gibbs manages to sit up. Tony’s still there, almost like he’s worried that his punch has caused harm where Gibbs pretty much asked for it. There’s a tire behind Gibbs; he leans his head against the door of the car, nor entirely successful at ignoring the alarm. Peripherally he’s aware of the guard on duty coming up to them to check for the reason for the disturbance.

“Don’t,” he says, insistent.

DiNozzo scoffs. “Don’t _what_? Don’t resign? Too late, Boss. Don’t leave? Don’t feel hurt? Don’t mind the total abandonment? Don’t turn your back on everything? I’ve learnt from the best.”

It’s obvious Tony’s broken down, just now, up there in the bullpen or down here when Gibbs tried to tackle him into the SUV. Something has happened – no, _Gibbs has done something_ – that’s made the cup overflow, or that’s broke the camel’s back, or whatever is the most fitting description of this situation.

“You’re better than me,” Gibbs says. It’s true.

DiNozzo scoffs again. “Bullshit.” He turns and starts walking away.

Gibbs scrambles to his feet, somewhat out of it, like he’s hit his head. He doesn’t remember hitting his head, but it’s entirely possible.

“Tony!”

DiNozzo pretends to ignore him. He can’t – Gibbs is sure of that much. He’s giving it a good effort, though.

He slams the door of his car with little more force than necessary and peels out of the garage, leaving Gibbs to face the security guy and explain the scene.

x

Gibbs has been stuck here for longer than an hour, sitting on the edge of the autopsy table, trying to decide what he’s going to do. He knows he’s going to DiNozzo’s apartment tonight (not to his own house, not when he knows the only thing left for dinner is his gun), but he can’t seem to figure out if he’s going to try and convince DiNozzo to invite him inside, or if he’s going to let himself in with the key.

He turns the key in his palm. It has absorbed his body heat, and is now unpleasantly warm. And a little sweaty.

DiNozzo might be stubborn and decide not to let him in. But DiNozzo will absolutely get pissed if Gibbs forces his way inside, and the resignation does count as revoking Gibbs’ access to the apartment even though the man hasn’t explicitly asked for his key back. There are limits to how far Gibbs can stretch his willful blindness.

The door handle moves down, and for a frightening second Gibbs is sure that Abby has found out what is happening and is about to accost him with the full power of her histrionics.

Then Ducky’s face appears, and Gibbs momentarily cannot breathe due to sheer relief.

“I thought you’d gone home, Duck.”

Ducky closes the door behind himself and takes a seat on Palmer’s chair. He folds his hands over the handle of his cane. “So I did, Jethro, so I did. It may have come to my attention that you had not, though, and since I do have my suspicions about the reason… well, it is my fervent wish to never have you as a guest down here.”

He looks around the Autopsy. It may be due to the light, but his eyes seem to shine more than usual.

“Didn’t mean to pull you out of bed,” Gibbs grumbles. In his typical fashion, he has once again disregarded that he does not actually live in a bubble.

Somehow the enormity of the break between him and DiNozzo made him forget that Ducky was a friend that worried about him – apparently to the point of getting dressed and driving back to work just to try and talk Gibbs off of the ledge.

“I would have been pulled out of bed regardless, if there was a dead body to examine,” Ducky points out, parallel to Gibbs’ thoughts.

“Damn Leon!” Gibbs snarls.

“Well, I do agree that our esteemed Director has done less than nothing to improve dear Anthony’s work environment, although I would not go as far as to blame him exclusively-”

“He kept me wrapped up with bureaucratic bullshit for the whole afternoon. If not for that, _I_ would have interviewed Walker, and the bastard wouldn’t have gotten into DiNozzo’s head-”

“Forgive me the impertinence, Jethro,” Ducky cuts in – uncharacteristically for him, which signifies that he is nowhere near as composed as he seems. In fact, it is a good thing that Palmer has put away all the sharp implements, because at the moment Ducky looks about ready to use one on Gibbs. “But have you thought about _why_ Mr Walker’s story affected Anthony quite as dramatically? I cannot help but wonder if perhaps Anthony has not seen an analogy with his own life in the young man’s retelling?”

Gibbs is glad he is sitting, because the shock that grips him would have folded him like a blow to the gut. He momentarily loses connection with the rest of his body, and when it comes back it is in the wake of hyperawareness of himself. He feels the rush of blood in his temples, in his knee; the stomach cramp from hunger that he has walked off hours ago is back, too. His head aches – dehydration, yes, he is aware that coffee isn’t a substitute for water.

“Ah,” Ducky says, with so much self-satisfaction that it is only Gibbs’ shock that saves the man from a fist in his face, regardless of their long friendship.

_Tony_ , Gibbs thinks. _Tony_ , who has been there, unwavering, unfaltering, come hell (Israel) and high water (Maddie), who fought off the reaper on Gibbs’ order more than once, who has finally woken up to the fact that he was being treated like shit while everyone laughed it off.

It is just luck that the MCRT doesn’t have a dartboard with Tony’s face on it. If it had occurred to anybody, Gibbs is fairly sure that there would have been one. And it would have been the source of many a chuckle.

He wants to kill someone. It is a familiar feeling, and mostly he knows how to work through it, but it’s rare that it rolls over him with such power.

“Jethro,” Ducky sighs, “you are aware that Tony does not have much in the way of ego.”

“I haven’t thought of it that way-” Lie. He thought of it. He used it. And abused it. And DiNozzo has finally noticed. “-but he does overcompensate with the bravado.”

“Rather a lot,” Ducky agrees. His fingers flex on the handle of his cane. “Then you can imagine that what to other agents might have seemed offensive or downright humiliating, he considered simply a sign of attention, however backhanded, if the unfortunate wording may be excused.”

“You think he came for the headslaps, Duck?” Gibbs asks, affecting cluelessness that the Doctor does not buy for a second.

There is an entire mythos to Gibbs’ recruitment of DiNozzo, and they’ve always kept it that way by mutual unspoken agreement. No one, literally no one aside from the two of them, knows the exact circumstances.

“Came and stayed,” Ducky ventures. “Sometimes those poor souls who experience neglect as children grow to feel that any kind of attention is good, or at least better than no attention at all.”

“This is DiNozzo we’re talking about, Duck,” Gibbs reminds him. DiNozzo – a born conman, a conman’s son, a man so wily that Gibbs never entirely could get a reading on him. Sadly, somehow his initial respect for that skill gradually turned into wariness, and resulted in this mess.

“Yes, Jethro,” Ducky replies long-sufferingly. “The boy who’s been a member of your team for years, and about whom we still scarcely know anything.” He stands, looks Gibbs in the eye and smacks Gibbs’ hand away when he reaches up to neaten his bowtie. “Except, of course, that for a while there you have been the centre of his universe.”

Gibbs blinks. “Have been? Not _were_?”

Ducky spins and steps away, pausing with his hand on the door handle. “I have a hope, my friend. But I fear that, mostly, that distinction is now up to you. It does, rather, paint the future bleak.”

Gibbs is already formulating a plan. He can control Ziva and McGee, but not around the blackmail material Leon has on him or around Leon’s baseless resentment of Tony. Leon Vance has to go. Gibbs can do it – it will be easy enough – and Abby will leave no forensic evidence. They have done it before.

It’s for Tony. It’s worth it.

x

The apartment is dark. There’s a little light coming in from the street, and fortunately Tony has very good ears, so he’s not startled and no one dies when he walks into his kitchen and there’s a darkly shape sitting on a chair at the table.

For a while neither of them says anything. Tony contemplates pretending that he doesn’t know who the intruder is and letting loose. He knows he wouldn’t get in more than a couple of punches before he is overpowered, but he knows how to make a couple of punches count.

It would definitely make him feel better-

“Ducky asked me not to kill myself,” Gibbs says, and there goes Tony’s chance.

“I’m not sure what that’s got to do with you sitting in my kitchen.”

Gibbs stares at him, waiting.

“Alright, fine.” Tony pours himself a glass of water. There’s no juice left, and he’s too fucked up to open a bottle of alcohol (he knows he’d finish it, and follow with another one, and that way lies hospitalization). The idea of coffee turns his stomach. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out. Let me just agree with Ducky on this point, because I can just see it: you off yourself, and the SecNav strong-arms Vance into calling me back to take care of your three orphaned ducklings. No, thanks. Been there, done that, got the additional trust issues instead of a fucking t-shirt.”

“Why?”

Tony slams the glass onto the counter. It’s a wonder it doesn’t break. “Why _what_? Why did I let them do it to me? Why did I let you?” He turns his head to face Gibbs, just for a moment, but that’s enough for the nausea to return. “I wondered that myself until – it turns out – Walker explained it to me exactly.”

Walker is sitting in a cell, awaiting transfer to the psychiatric unit, where the shrinks will try to gauge the extent of his brainwashing and Stockholm syndrome.

Funny how it took Tony breaking a suspect and having him spill his reasoning – perfectly logical inside the box, while batshit insane from the outside – to see through. Like that song – Killing Me Softly. _Saying my life with his words_.

“Carrot and stick,” Tony singsongs with a rictus grin. “Isolate the victim. Then a smaller carrot, a bigger stick. Isolate them some more. Huge stick, promise of a carrot in the future. In the end, there’s just a merry-go-round of blind devotion and pain, and you can’t get off for the inertia. Because a long time ago someone made me a promise he didn’t bother to keep once it wasn’t necessary anymore.”

Gibbs’ eyes move to the cupboard where Tony keeps the lockbox with his spare.

Huh, Tony thinks. There’s an idea. A murder-suicide would top off their tumultuous collegiality nicely, wouldn’t it? If he believed in afterlife, he might have been scared of Ducky’s retribution, but Tony’s blissfully sure that once you cop it, there’s nothing.

No resting in peace. Just silence.

But some days _nothing_ sounds damn sweet.

“So, which one of us would do it?” he asks.

Gibbs doesn’t even try to pretend that he doesn’t understand. “You. I wouldn’t kill you, and I would let you kill yourself over my dead body, so…”

“Funny,” Tony muses. “Weren’t you waiting with bated breath for the moment McGee became your Senior Agent?”

Gibbs rolls his eyes. “McGee’s gotten better, but I’d still eat him for breakfast if you weren’t holding his hand.”

“Then _bon appétit_ , Gibbs, since that’s happening starting tomorrow.”

Gibbs chokes off a laugh. An actual laugh. Maybe more than Tony thought has broken in him at the Navy Yard. The scene Gibbs made in the garage was pretty hinky, and considering how the man felt about making scenes in general, maybe Walker wasn’t the only one who needed a thorough shrinking session.

“You meant what you said in the bullpen?” Gibbs asks once the hilarity abates. His eyes shine like two fucking St. Elmo’s fires. Blue. Eldritch.

“I said a lot. That I don’t hate you? I can’t. That’s how Stockholm syndrome works, Boss.”

Gibbs shakes his head. He stands. Raises his hand.

Tony tries to become one with the counter but, unfortunately, the counter doesn’t budge. It’s been a while since he was so frightened of Gibbs. That’s _exactly_ how Stockholm syndrome works. He’s found the triggers, figured out exactly what to do and not do to incur the wrath. He knows the landmines, knows how to protect himself. He’s in control of the situation – except that he’s not, is he?

This time he’s gathered his courage, said no, deliberately stepped right on the mine, and here comes the stick, it’s gonna hurt-

Instead of a headslap, Gibbs’ hand curls around the back of Tony’s neck and pulls him into a kiss. It’s nothing special, except that Tony’s terrified enough that the only thing he can do is tremble in Gibbs’ hands. He can’t respond. Can’t reciprocate.

Gibbs reads it as rejection – thank all that is conceivably holy! – and lets go. Steps away.

Tony’s heart skips beats like there’s a shortage of them. His breath catches. The pressure heightens, and he coughs.

And coughs.

It’s not bad enough for the inhaler, but he’s feeling exhausted and weak, and it hurts. He seizes on the chance to think, to distance himself from Gibbs’ attempted coup, remember the cases they worked together, remember Gibbs undercover – how charming he could be if he tried, how that persona of his had no problems flirting, no problems kissing someone to get information out of them.

Tony’s damn sure Gibbs wouldn’t have had any problems fucking someone if it got him what he wanted.

“That what you’re here for?” he asks, stunned to be on this side of the equation. Of course. He’s been on it from the start, in a way, he knows this – he just hasn’t internalized it yet. “You’re going to give me what I want. You’re going to kiss me, maybe fuck me, and expect me to hop back on your team tomorrow the way I’d hop on your dick tonight.” He sounds breathless for more than one reason. “Right. Like I haven’t seen you do this to a thousand crooks and subordinates over the years.”

Oh wow. If he were a little cleverer, he could have seduced Gibbs long ago, eaten his cake, and spared himself years of agony.

Gibbs shakes his head. “I’ve only ever done that from a safe position, and you know it, Tony.”

Tony sneers at the artless first-name drop and simpers: “ _To-nee_.”

“What I’m offering you is…” Gibbs lowers his voice to those registers that go straight to the groins of his audience (and the fucking bastard knows it and uses it), “…taking down the wall.”

Tony barks out a mirthless laugh. “Letting me in just until dawn so I can get addicted and then die of withdrawal, or trapping me in with you when you raise it again in the morning?”

“That what you think?”

“Oh, _Jeth-ro_. I know I’m depressed, and maybe borderline suicidal, and I’ve really let you stomp all over what pathetic remnants of dignity I had left, but… oh hell, why not? It’s not going to hurt any less than it already does, and maybe this way it will be over quicker.”

He pulls his t-shirt over his head and lets it fall to the floor. He reaches down to pull off his sweats, but Gibbs’ hands are in the way, holding onto his hips.

Stubbled cheek scrapes uncomfortably over the side of his neck. “You give yourself to me, Tony, I’m not letting you go.”

“Hm,” Tony voices despondently. He doesn’t care, that’s what it comes down to. “And the next time you give me an order to not die, I’m going to try out what insubordination is like. McGee and Ziva seemed to enjoy it. You do, too, come to think of it. It has to be my turn sometimes.”

Gibbs can’t tell – he’s too close. He’s always seen better from afar. From within touching distance Tony can fool him. Easily.

Gibbs might have gone behind his back, scrapped both resignation letters and recruited the ducklings to the effort of pushing Tony back into his designated place, but the jack was out of the box now.

And even if judicious application of Gibbs’ dick changes Tony’s mind tonight, tomorrow is a whole new day. Tony still has his spare and his ability to come in under Gibbs’ guard.

They’ll see who’s _really_ in control here.

x

…and they lived happily ever after. Except Vance. Whatever happened to that guy?

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: crack treated seriously, terminal out-of-characterness, slash, angst, depression, suicidal thoughts, brainwash, mental health issues, mindfuck, everyone is emo, badfic


End file.
